Business & Finance

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 06 dec 2014

Without customers there is no business. Without happy customers the business will not last long. So what should companies do to know their customers and provide solutions to them in the best possible way, keep them satisfied and happy, and let them come back again and again. JC Grubbs, CEO of DevMynd Software, explains of the efforts his team does to become subject matter expert's within a client's vertical and turns the vendor/customer relationship into a partnership. According to him, 'more than technology or even product design, the software business is about knowledge. It's about taking a problem space and synthesizing a solution from as much knowledge as we can obtain. It's essential to our success with any customer that we get to know their industry, their business and the people involved.' He suggests five things that his company does to build knowledge around an industry and particularly in customer's business - (1) Ask Questions (2) Follow the Money (3) Understand Partnerships (4) Understand the End Customers (5) Investigate Competitors. Read on...

Upstart Business Journal: 5 ways to get to know your customers better
Author: JC Grubbs

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 05 dec 2014

Social media phenomenon has transformed the way individuals and businesses connect, interact and engage with their audiences and customers. The accelerating pace of change in social media is further enhancing its value and at the same time providing new challenges for companies to adapt to change and incorporate the latest tools to stay ahead. Ryan Holmes, CEO of Hootsuite, suggests the following 5 changes that will shape social media in 2015 - (1) Social media and e-commerce merge. (2) Social media privacy issues come to the fore. (3) Social media becomes your virtual wallet. (4) New networks come and new networks go. (5) Smart devices get smarter, with help from social media. Read on...

Financial Post: These 5 trends will change social media in 2015
Author: Ryan Holmes

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 05 dec 2014

In the technology-enabled world, businesses have to utilize latest technologies, systems and processes to stay ahead of the competition and satisfy their customers. Enterprise technologies that were successful in the past may not suffice in the future. Eric Knorr, Editor-in-Chief of InfoWorld, provides 9 trends in enterprise technology that will have an impact in 2015 and beyond - (1) The triumph of the public cloud. (2) Container madness. (3) Microservices architecture. (4) Liquid computing. (5) Multicloud management. (6) Endpoint security innovation. (7) Machine learning. (8) The return of devops. (9) The end of network switches. Open source is leading the way in most technology developments with startups bringing them to production for their customers and other developers see their value and start building ecosystem around the core projects like Docker, Hadoop, OpenStack etc. This model of open source development - collaborative, self-organized, and distributed - is starting to impact enterprise app dev and will be a trend to watch in the years to come. Read on...

InfoWorld: 9 key enterprise tech trends for 2015 and beyond
Author: Eric Knorr

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 04 dec 2014

In pursuit of success, entrepreneurs have to put in long hours of work and had to survive on little money. This may lead to adverse effects on their health and well being. Moreover even the hard work and sacrifices may not lead to success for most of them - 8 out of 10 entrepreneurial businesses crash and burn within the first 18 months. Kristopher B. Jones, a successful entrepreneur & mentor, suggests necessary qualities for entrepreneurial success - (1) Perseverance: Sustainable companies require patience & perseverance and are built over times. The success is not merely about having a big idea, its more about carefully, effectively and patiently executing it. Entrepreneurs need hard work, tenacity and true grit. (2) Optimism: Its a combination of confidence, hope and positivity. Entrepreneurs need to keep going to accomplish goals at every stage. (3) Decisiveness: Right decision-making is needed at the right moment. Don't dither and procrastinate and make speedy choices with objective reasoning. (4) Self-awareness: Know your strengths and weaknesses and be honest about them. Find good people to do the job that you can't do yourself well. (5) Motivation: Entrepreneurs are motivated by something bigger like contributing to society, impact people, solve an important problem or just change the world for better. (6) Focus: Key component of the entrepreneur mind-set and most challenging to implement. With information overload to distract entrepreneurs, they need to keep themselves focused on their one big idea and develop a plan to execute it step by step. Read on...

Forbes: The Dark Side Of The Moon: Why So Many Entrepreneurs Fail
Author: Kristopher B. Jones

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 04 dec 2014

'Meaningful use' section of the American Investment & Recovery Act of 2009 and provisions in the Affordable Care Act of 2010, required health providers to invest in patients' electronic health records and allow for electronic data reporting to the government. This prompted healthcare organizations in US to invest heavily on IT and created large amount of data that can be used to improve the quality of care, increase patient satisfaction, and reduce costs. But only few are doing it efficiently and effectively with the help of clinical business intelligence (CBI). CBI is an IT system that collects and analyzes data and delivers the results to frontline clinicians in real time, helping them to make better decisions. It can be used to keep clinicians informed about everything from infections and iatrogenic injuries (those caused unintentionally by physicians) to whether units are over- or understaffed. ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value, an independent non-profit educational institute, has identified three key building blocks that are required to create and implement a CBI strategy - (1) Change leaders' mind-set: A sustainable, transparent, empowered, evidence-based culture supported by CBI is the end state. Getting there requires leaders to understand the need for information at the front line of care and to support efforts to provide it. (2) Standardize data: Organizations must create a centrally located area for storing data and develop standard definitions for variables and exclusions. (3) Build a culture of transparency: Create an environment where workers are empowered to identify and solve problems each day without manager intervention. Workers need leadership support, transparent work environments, and the essential data on defects, wait times, inventory etc. Read on...

Harvard Business Review: Hospitals Are Finally Starting to Put Real-Time Data to Use
Authors: Melissa Mannon, John S. Toussaint

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 01 dec 2014

Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA), National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) and Internet Security Alliance (ISA), are organizations that have been working on issues of corporate governance related to cyber security. NACD and ISA recently published a report 'Cyber-Risk Oversight' in which they propose five key principles for boards in approaching cyber-risk - (1) Cyber-risk is more than just an IT issue: It is a key component of enterprise risk management, requiring board-level oversight. (2) Cyber risks have important legal ramifications, which directors need to understand. (3) Cyber-risk should be a topic of regular board discussion, and boards need access to the expertise to engage with cyber-risk issues. (4) Directors should ensure management implements an effective cyber-risk framework for the company. (5) The board and management should assess cyber-risk just like other enterprise-level risks: Ensuring a specific determination is made of which aspects of cyber-risk to accept, avoid, mitigate or insure against. The IIA and ISACA have built upon these five principles to provide well thought out implementation guidance in a publication titled 'Cybersecurity: What the Board of Directors Needs to Ask'. Moreover IIA and ISACA also suggest six questions boards should consider to prepare for discussions with management and audit. Read on...

CTOvision.com: Cyber Security and Corporate Governance: The five principles every corporate director should embody
Author: Bob Gourley

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 30 nov 2014

Nonprofit boards play an important role in providing direction and guidance to the organization by developing policies and plans to achieve their goals. They also bring accountability and oversight to the organization. Eugene Fram, Professor Emeritus at Rochester Institute of Technology, provides outcomes of one of the sessions organized by National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) focusing on board 'challenges and opportunities expected in the next five to seven years.' According to Prof. Fram, the results of the session, although for for-profit boards, can also be applied to help nonprofit boards focus on culture, leadership and achieve strategic success: (1) Inherent in the board-management relationship is an information imbalance. (2) With an expanding board agenda, process and expectation settings are critical. (3) An empowered lead director... can help mitigate the risk of information imbalance. ... and can break down some of the roadblocks that may develop between the management and directors. (4) Ultimately, the board has to make winning decisions that are informed by data. (5) The board should identify which stakeholders are critical to the strategic plan and target communications to those groups. Read on...

Huffington Post: Strong Culture and Leadership Critical for Nonprofit Board Strategic Success
Author: Eugene Fram

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 29 nov 2014

In the world of ever changing expectations of customers for meaningful product experiences, designers have to bring emotions, empathy and sensitivity into their designs. Technology is often a facilitator but not everything in the design process. Sohrab Vossoughi, President & Founder of Ziba, as a participant of the panel discussion on 'The Future of Product Design' alongwith Allan Chochinov of the School of Visual Arts and Core77, Aura Oslapas of A+O, and John Jay of Wieden + Kennedy, explores and evaluates the evolution of product design since the time they entered the profession. They all agreed that the real expertise of product designers is not in the mastery of latest computer-aided tools and technologies but their ability to identify needs, create meaning and form a thoughtful point of view on what a design should do... and why. Five important themes emerged out of the panel discussion regarding the direction in which product design would go in the next 30 years - (1) The product is rarely just physical anymore. (2) As more services go digital, real world experience becomes more meaningful. (3) Consumers expect better design across the board. (4) Improved tools make us more efficient, not more effective. (5) Tomorrow's crucial design skills will be empathy and translation. Read on...

Core77: Expectations and Empathy: The Future of Product Design
Author: Sohrab Vossoughi

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 28 nov 2014

Advancements in Internet of Things (IoT) with expanded internet access and connectivity through various devices, gadgets and machines, also brings security risks. Security community has to be prepared to face variety of cyber attacks and plug loopholes and vulnerabilities. Symantec's APJ (Asia-Pacific/Japan) security predictions for 2015 explores issues that will affect individual customers, businesses and governments in the region - (1) Attacks on the Internet of Things (IoT) will focus on smart home automation. (2) Mobile devices will become even more attractive targets. (3) Machine learning will be a game changer in the fight against cybercrime. (4) Privacy will continue to be sacrificed for mobile apps. (5) Scammers will continue to run profitable ransomware scams. (6) The prominent data leaks of 2014 will keep cybersecurity in the spotlight in 2015. (7) Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) will continue to rise as a threat. (8) User behaviour will take centre stage as security moves beyond passwords. (9) The Cloud will take us to Infinity and Beyond. (10) The front lines of cybersecurity will be strengthened by closer industry partnerships and collaborations. Read on...

InformationWeek: Top 10 security predictions for 2015
Author: NA

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 26 nov 2014

Digital marketing leverage can be accomplished by startups at low cost by clearly defining, creating and delivering the online message, utilizing the gamut of available technologies. These technologies have to be used effectively to target the audience, engage the customer and measure results. In their new book 'Taking Down Goliath', authors Kevin M. Ryan and Rob "Spider" Graham, provide the best strategy and tactics to accomplish this digital marketing leverage. The first step in the process is to create the perfect message and define it as selling solutions (not technology) to real customers with real needs and problems they want solved. Business-to-business (B2B) entrepreneurs should ask the following questions: (1) How does this solution solve an existing problem? (2) How does this solution provide a competitive advantage? (3) How does this solution make the customer a visionary/market leader? (4) How does this solution enable a significant value exchange? (5) How does this solution represent an exclusive opportunity? How does this solution increase performance and productivity? Effective marketing messages for business-to-consumer (B2C) audience, should stroke emotional triggers like sense of well-being, convenience, security, significance, exclusivity, positive social standing etc, that facilitate their buying process. Read on...

Forbes: Digital Marketing Is A Great Equalizer For Startups
Author: Martin Zwilling

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